cat attacking behavior, out of nowhere after 3 years.

Question
Hi,
I have a question about my cat. He is 3 years old, male, neutered. He has always been a spunky cat but nothing out of the ordinary. He moved into my boyfriends house in June of last year. Everything was fine... until the last couple of months. He will get in the windows of the house and freak out. He has torn my boyfriend up (very badly) twice. He not only scratches but bites and draws a tremendous amount of blood. He has also attacked my boyfriend's cousin. I am writing because my cat just attacked my boyfriend literally 10 minutes ago. I don't know why his behavior is like this. I asked my boyfriend and he assures me they have done nothing to my cat (and knowing him I believe this completely). He has never been aggressive and this is now his third attack situation. I thought it may have been cats outside but there were none outside the windows tonight and when I was patching up my boyfriend the cat lunged at his cousin while in the living room.
I want to make this stop but I don't know how. He is very vicious in the situations.
What would make him start this random very aggressive behavior now? I don't want to get rid of him or put him down... What do I do?

Answer
Jessie,

Whenever a cat changes his behavior noticeably you should take him to the vet for a checkup. His reaction could be because he is in severe pain somewhere.

If not, he may have what is called Redirected Aggression. That happens when a cat sees a strange cat outside and  becomes territorial, but can't get to the strange cat to defend his territory. The cat then turns on the closest animal member of the family and fights with them as if they were the other cat. They have been known to attack people if no other animals are in the house. You may not see the animal that the cat sees.

The first thing you need to do is block the window past the cat's eye level of the window he can see another cat out of (out of sight, out of mind). If it is allowed to go on your cat may develop a permanent personality change. Also put the cat in a room by itself for at least 4 hours to calm down when he behaves like that.

There is a very popular cat calming spray and plug-in you can use called Feliway. It is available at pet stores or on-line. It copies relaxing pheromones that cats produce from rubbing their faces on things.

There is also a calming product that you can add to the cat's food or water that reduces anxiety called Bach's Rescue Remedy. It is available on-line and in health food stores. Here is a link about it: (copy and paste, or type the whole links into your address bar)
http://www.bachflower.com/Pets.htm

If your cat is still being very stressed the vet can put him on "kitty Prozac" for a short term (usually 2 weeks) until he calms down. You may want to speak to the vet about it.

I am including links to 2 good articles on Redirected Aggression that may be helpful to you:

http://www.sniksnak.com/cathealth/aggression3.html

http://www.littlebigcat.com/index.php?action=library&act=show&item=redirectedagr...

But first make sure it's not a medical issue causing the behavior.

Tabbi